Fractal Design isn’t a company known by many, but has been becoming more popular over the past year or so. This Swedish company offers a wide variety of cases, ranging from $30 to $170. Today we’ll be looking at one of the lower end models, the Core 3000. The Core 3000 comes equipped with three fans and room for many more as well as a very simple tool-free installation. Read on further to see what else this case has in store.

Features

Simple yet elegant front panel with mesh and filter

Optimized for performance with multiple cooling options

A total of 7(!) fan slots (1x 120mm + 1x 140mm in front, 2x 120/140mm in top, 1x 120mm in bottom, 1x 120mm in rear, 1x 120/140mm in side panel)

Three fans included (1x 140mm in front, 1x 120mm in rear and 1x 140mm in top)

6x white painted HDD trays, with silicone mounting

Upper HDD cage is removable and rotatable

Easily removable front panel with clip on fan slots

Specifications

6x 3,5 inch HDD trays, compatible with SSD!

2x 5,25 inch bays, with 1x 5,25>3,5 inch converter included

4x USB 2.0 and Audio I/O – mounted on top of front panel

Removable filter below PSU (PSU not included)

M/B compatibility: Mini ITX, Micro ATX and ATX

7 expansion slots with sleek white painted brackets

Supports graphic card lengths up to 270mm when removable HDD-Bay is in place

Supports graphic card lengths up to 420mm without removable HDD-Bay

Supports CPU coolers with height of 160mm

Supports PSU’s with a depth of maximum circa 160mm, when using bottom 120mm fan location. When not using the bottom 120mm fan location, the case supports also longer PSU’s, typically 250mm

Case size (WxHxD): 200x430x480mm with front and top bezel in place

Net weight: 7,1kg

Cooling system

Fan controller for 3 fans included

1 front mounted Fractal Design 140mm fan @ 1000rpm included

1 rear mounted Fractal Design 120mm fan @ 1200rpm included

1 top mounted Fractal Design 140mm fan @ 1000rpm included

Additional 4 fan slots available for optional fans; one 120mm in front, one 120mm in bottom,one 120/140mm in top and one 120/140mm in side panel

Packaging
The Fractal Design Core 3000 comes packaged in a plain cardboard box. The cardboard quality isn’t the greatest, but it seems Fractal Design has made some effort to improve the look of the packaging by adding some blue in with the basic black text and diagrams. The front of the box shows a diagram of the outside of the case while the back of the box covers the features, specifications and diagram of the inside of the case.

The box is well protected by two pieces of hard foam as well as a pretty thick plastic bag.